Life is Letters are RIP offs will Get You
by spandexmonkey
Summary: Would you believe, I don't like Terra? This does have a plot line, somewhere, eventually. ... There are all sorts of pairings, and by the end, they'll have changed, so don't go assuming anything, and have fun reading :)
1.

You look into my heart and see  
A perfect mess, please set me free  
Unwind the ribbons that tie me down  
I am your princess, you wear my crown  
Our fairytale will never end  
The love of my life, he's my best friend

-

-

****

**Letters are RIP offs.**  
  
-

-  
  
_Dear Boy Beast. **Beast Boy**. However you want to say it._

_Where am I supposed to start with this? I feel like such a bitch.  
__Yes! I sold you out. I'm sorry.  
__Yes, I put cameras around your house, and I'm sorry for that too.  
__Yes, I totally stole your first kiss experience...  
__I'm not sorry about that part though._

_Should I be?  
  
-_

Terra paused in her mental letter writing progression. Should she really include a part about not being sorry? What kind of an effect would that have on Beast Boy? What if someone else read it? What if...

Screw what ifs, she thought. This was supposed to be about the passion.

_So, I feel bad. Really, really bad. It's just, kind of cold, and, I was thinking about you..._

Thinking about you? Right...

Terra sighed, screwed up the paper, and threw it viciously at the waste paper basket. It missed. She leant forwards over the desk, and banged her forehead into the fake wood. Then she turned to look at the rain through the window.

Rain. It was always, _always_, raining when she tried to write this.

Okay. It was winter. It was supposed to rain a lot. But still...

Terra currently lived in a glamorous detached bungalow, situated on the northern banks of Jump City, overlooking what would have been the slums, had Jump had any slums to speak of. She paid no rent, probably because there was no one to pay rent _to_, and she was in the process of looking for a job so that she could start to buy some decent food, instead of scavenging off of the charity packs they gave out at the local church.

While it was entirely possible for her to live off of one meal a day, the thought of such independence as enough money to buy herself some cereal, and a change of clothes that wasn't from a thrift store, and maybe a haircut, was more than enough to make a decent paying 9-5 look almost like a Christmas present.

Terra reached up and raked her hands through her hair. Grease. Yum.

No, not yum. She was hungry. She didn't need words like yum right now.

Terra stuffed a bit of hair in her mouth and chewed it lamely. She was coming up seventeen, by her reckoning. It was time she stopped running, and faced up to the real world.

Slade had taught her some useful things about herself. She was determined to grow up. She could survive alone. And she could control her powers.

He'd also taught her about the less favourable side of her personality, which, as painful a lesson as it had been, was a very beneficial experience.

She knew where her flaws were, not only as a fighter, but also as a person.

She was daydreaming again.

Terra sat up and shook her head, and then she pulled the latest Jump City Saturday paper off the floor, and flipped back to the job section. Of the fourteen jobs advertised that she was qualified for, ten of them were circled as easy to get to.

Right.

Terra left the paper on the table and went to bed early, ignoring the copious amount of paper balls that littered the floor surrounding the wastebasket as she passed it.  
  
-  
-

Monday morning saw the earthmover up just before winter dawn, sat cross-legged in front of a long floor mirror, braiding her hair. She left two strands loose at the front.

Her hair had grown, and touched the bottoms of her elbows when she stood up. This made looking after it hellish, and waking up on a bad hair day was absolutely not funny on the morning of a first job interview.

She held the loose strands in her mouth, and braided the rest of it efficiently, tying the ends with green, brown and orange bands. Then she reached to the dresser, grabbed a pair of scissors, and turned the two loose strands into professional looking face framers.

She left the eight inches of severed hair on the floor, and stood up to assess her appearance.

She was wearing a pair of black and grey thick-pinstriped pants, and a blue polo shirt. She wondered, casually, if she looked a bit too thin.

She grinned. There really was no such thing in the modern world.

Grabbing a jacket and a hat, she stepped into her shoes, and exited the bungalow, not bothering to lock the door behind her.

After forty minutes of walking, Terra reached stop number one, a conveyer belt factory. She walked inside, and asked at the office for the number advertised in the newspaper.

A twenty minute wait later, she was seen for ten minutes, and then informed that if she didn't have a working phone line, the factory wouldn't hire her.

Never mind.

Stop number two was another ten minutes along the road, this time a record store. She asked inside to see the manager about the advertised job. The kid at the desk informed her, a bit smugly, that that was actually _his_ job she was asking about.

Terra shrugged, and told the kid to have a nice day. His surprise at her grin amused her, and she left with a bit of a fun dizzy feeling.

She walked another fifteen minutes, by which time it was nearing nine o'clock, and came to the next stop on her list – a service station. They told her the same as the conveyer belt factory – no phone, no job.

She sighed. She really didn't want to get a phone line. It was too expensive, and she had literally got absolutely no money at all.

Never _mind_.

Each stop was taking her nearer and nearer to the heart of Jump, but she didn't mind. It was a little chilly for her taste, but she wasn't cold, and the buzz of the inner city nearing was a little exciting. She decided to skip stop numbers four and five, as she could see them on the way back if she really needed to, and carry on walking until she got to the next stop on the list.

Which happened to be a comic book shop.

The people began to grow in number as Terra got nearer to the sixth potential job, and she spent the next twenty-five minutes walking figuring out the best bus to catch as soon as she got paid, if she decided to take jobs number six, seven, eight nine or ten.

It was a good thing she didn't have anything else to be doing. Ever.

She reached the shop, which opened at nine, at approximately nine thirty, and walked in. There was no one there save a guy sat with his feet on the desk, reading a magazine.

"Err, hi!" Said Terra. She walked up to the desk. The guy looked up at her, and then grinned.

"Hey," he said. His voice was deep. Terra found herself grinning a bit back at him. "Can I help you with something?"

"I saw the ad in the Jump City Saturday about a job..." Terra gesticulated a bit, and the guy raised his eyebrows and pulled his feet down off the desk.

"I'll go get the boss," he said, still grinning at her. He walked around the till, put the magazine on one of the stands, and walked back, this time sitting properly in the chair. "Well," he said. "Today, I'm the boss. You want the job?"

"Err... Yeah! Please," Said Terra, putting enthusiasm into her voice. She wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but it was good to sound enthusiastic.

"Okay!" Said the guy. He reached under the desk and pulled out a few forms. "Fill these in, sign there," he gestured, and put a pen down in front of her, "and you're pretty much hired."

Terra eyed the forms. "Is it really essential that I have a phone number?" She asked, hopefully.

"Err..." the guy eyed her for a second. "Nope!" He said brightly.

Terra beamed.

-

-

Twenty minutes later she emerged from Cassie's Comics, with a big grin on her face. She wasn't going to bother looking at any more jobs.

She started on Tuesday, which was tomorrow, and she worked from nine till three most days except Fridays and Saturdays, where Ross, the guy behind the counter, informed her she could "unofficially cut early". He also told her that the staff had a rota worked out, so that only one or two of them really had to come in at nine am.

Terra had volunteered to come in at nine am, because this week, Ross was doing Mondays to Thursdays.

She smiled. The winter sun was out. The people were busy. She felt, all of a sudden, and in a most brilliant way, a part of greater society. She had her place. A small place, but a place all the same.

There was a bounce in her step as she started walking to the intersection she would need to cross over in order to get back on the road home.

Everything was working out!

Henceforth, Terra's first thought, as she saw the giant bunny clomping over cars, and kicking into buildings, was 'everything really is going okay.'

* * *

Jesus, what a dumb first thought, thought Terra, blinking up at the bunny. 

People around her started screaming, and running frantically in the other direction.

"Run, idiot girl!" Shouted a man in a business suit, appearing from nowhere in the sudden crowd. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her backwards, and then saw _why _he'd manhandled her, as a car crashed violently down on its bonnet where she'd just been stood.

People were pouring out of the front of the office buildings surrounding. Cars had been abandoned in the road – it wasn't hard to see why. The bunny was kicking vehicles around like footballs.

It's front paws balled up into fists, and it began crashing toward a tower block ominously. Terra balled up her own fist instinctively, and drew earth out from underneath its feet, causing it to stumble backwards, and temporarily forget about desecrating the scene.

The man let go of her arm, and ran off in the other direction. Terra's face contorted. She didn't want to do this. But there was no way she was letting all these damages happen because some lame giant bunny thing felt like rampaging through the city.

Where the hell were the Teen Titans when you needed them?

She flexed a –for once, un-gloved– fist, and it began to glow yellow as the concrete beneath her feet started to separate from it's groundings. She rose up on the makeshift platform, until she was the bunny's height.

If she could get it away from the tall buildings and traffic, it might be easier...

"Hey!" She shouted. She remembered then why she used to wear goggles. It wasn't easy on the eyes flying around at this height. Or at any height, come to think about it.

The bunny stared at her. Its giant eyes looked less like toys close up, and more like decorated glass. The patterns on each pupil complimented the contrasting stripes and flushes of colour on each iris. Its nose was wet. Terra's nose wrinkled a bit.

"Yeah!" She shouted, trying to make her voice loud enough for it to hear. Its ears were almost both pointing at her, she took that as a good sign.

"This way!" She called, slowly flying the platform down a clear road. She kept glancing behind her to check she wasn't going to run it in to anything. The bunny stared at her. She yelled at it some more, trying to make loud convincingly coaxing noises.

Then it made a sort of squealing sound, and began stamping off in the other direction.

"No! No no!" Yelled Terra. She waved her arms forwards, trying to get its attention, then spotted two blurs flying in its direction from the west, one orange and pink, and one blue. She held back an audible start, and immediately dropped the platform sharply downward, holding on to avoid air friction. She hit the ground in an alleyway below just as the sounds of a powerful motorbike rounded the corner.

The R-Cycle span around the street corner, tailing the bunny. Robin was atop, looking as intimidating as ever in his primary colours, his helmet on. He was a good role model, Terra thought, vaguely.

She was more concerned with locating the rest of the Titans, so that she could get away whilst being sure that none of them would see her.

_Get away_... she wondered why she felt, all of a sudden, like the criminal trying to escape the scene.

Get away...

She ran down to the end of the alley, and hopped up onto a low roof. The bunny was being beat up from all angles. She observed particularly a large octopus; it's tentacles covering the bunny's eyes, while black energy began to bind it down so it couldn't flail and kick and cause more damage.

Something gnawed inside Terra's chest.

Something was ignored. Another platform rose out of the concrete.

Suitably assured that she wouldn't be spotted now, Terra crouched on the flying piece of ground, and held on. She didn't look back as she flew as far back to her bungalow as she dared.

* * *

* * *

_So... whaddya think?_

_I eat reviews for breakfast, so if you don't want me to die of metabolism faliure... wink wink._


	2. 

Letters aren't.

It took nearly two hours to get back.

Terra covered the last twenty minutes back to her bungalow on foot. She hopped up the short hill that preceded that line of disused temporary housing, and decided to stop in at the church later that afternoon for her charity dinner.

She got to the door, and stopped with her hand on the handle. Someone was... oh. Her head tilted sideways, and she felt a mixture of emotions, sad, resigned... other things...

"Hey Raven," she said.

She was just guessing. But guessing apparently correct, because a fully solid Raven emerged, somehow, from the shadow of the adjacent building. The sorceress' face was unreadable.

Terra took her in without looking at her properly. Ravens hair was tied up in a ponytail. She had on a jacket and black trousers.

Obviously, she wasn't looking to be recognized. Or...

"We're you going to spy on me from across the street, or actually come say Hi?" Terra asked. She immediately cringed. The dumbest things came out of her mouth sometimes. Like when she was panicking.

Raven crossed the street slowly, and her expression remained unreadable. Terra wished she would say something. She stopped a couple of feet away from the door and where Terra was stood, and just stood there, with her arms crossed.

Terra looked at the wall, breathed in, and then exhaled audibly.

"Raven," she said.

"Terra," replied the other girl, flatly.

Terra had almost forgotten why she didn't like Raven. Until she said her name. Like that.

_Why could they not have sent..._ or... why couldn't they just leave her alone?

What would she have done in their place?

"What are you doing here?" Terra asked.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Asked Raven back.

"I asked first."

"And _I_ want an answer."

Terra made herself count to five.

"Good-bye, Raven," she said, and opened her door. She closed it behind herself, and stared at the floor for a second. Then she leaned back against the wall, slid down it, and hugged her knees.

**KNOCK- KNOCK- KNOCK.**

Terra felt like wrenching the earth outside the door up, and flinging Raven across the street.

She couldn't see exactly where she was stood, but she could guess pretty well from here.

She decided to ignore the door. Raven turned into a symbol, of the clichéd horror movie doorknocker. She couldn't open the door; she had to hide until the knocker went away.

Terra sat on the floor, and eyed the masses of screwed up paper balls littering the floor around her bin.

Maybe later she would write another one. She felt like writing. Only this one would be to-

**KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.**

-Someone really annoying.

Terra grabbed a couple of handfuls of hair, ruining her neat braids, and growled, quietly, so that Raven wouldn't hear.

Horror movies had never really scared her anyway. She stood up, and wrenched the door open suddenly. Like she wanted to scare the other girl, or something.

Raven was still stood there with her arms folded. She looked quite different with her hair tied up, Terra observed, it put a peculiar emphasis on all sorts of features.

"What do you want?" She asked, trying to sound annoyed and busy. It came out more like a hiss.

"How long," said Raven. Terra had to work out that it was a question, because there was no hint of it in her tone.

"How long what?" She asked. She knew what Raven was asking, but she wasn't going to play along with this. Raven had nothing to do with her life anymore, and she didn't know anything. _Especially_ anything about Terra.

"How long have you been..." said Raven, and she paused as if trying to work out how to put it, "... living here?" She frowned a bit. Or maybe Terra was imagining it.

"About four months," she replied, curtly. She didn't know what else to say. She wanted Raven to go away so she could pretend that this never happened.

And the morning had been going so well.

Ravens mouth opened, and then closed. Terra tried to make an annoyed glaring face. Raven then shook her head in an exasperated fashion (or as close as), turned around, and abruptly began to walk away, looking strangely as though someone had just yelled 'told you so.' Terra stared.

"So that's it, you're just going to _leave_?"

I really just asked that? Oh _God_, Terra thought, smacking herself in the face with a club. Mentally, of course.

Raven stopped walking. Terra fancied she could imagine Raven smacking her forehead right now, had she not been a stoic idiot. She wondered if Raven actually did have emotions that were safe, and she just acted like she didn't so that she could put people down and get annoyed at everything.

And then it started to rain.

She shouldn't have had that last thought, huh.

It was very sudden, as rain is during the wintertime. As though the clouds had just parted all of a sudden, and were throwing buckets of water down through millions of tiny sieves.

Terra sighed. Always. Every _single_ time she tried to do anything related to those prats. She hated _rain_. She hated what she said next.

"Unugh... Do you want to come in or something?"

-

-

-

"...And then fourteen was held until the police arrived." Pause. "Sir."

"Sigh," said a deep voice.

"And I suppose the Titans never up-followed on the blonde at all?"

"Err... no. S'far as we're aware."

Silence. "And how aware is that?"

"Err, fairly, Sir."

"Fairly? Equally as aware as your opposition? You jest?"

"Err... yes. I-"

"Sniff," said the voice. "I suppose one shall have to make do. Recall an analysis of the progress on fifteen."

"Right away, Sir."

-

-

-

"They don't know," said Raven.

Terra blinked. "What?" She asked, stupidly.

"They don't know. No one knows I'm here. Or that you're here."

Terra stared at Raven, sat on one end of a pile of cushions. Terra was sat on what she thought was probably once a duvet, and some pillows and a towel.

"...How come?" She asked, the question holding more weight than it sounded.

"Because you clearly weren't keen on being sighted," said Raven, "and... I didn't want to do that to the rest of them. No one else even saw you."

Oh.

Terra looked out of the window. It was still raining.

"So why did you see me?"

Raven blinked. In the light, she suddenly looked a bit like a ghost. Terra felt a strange sense of foreboding... and then it was gone, and the light was normal again.

"I see a lot of things other people don't notice."

Terra leaned forwards, her elbows on her knees, just digesting that. Raven hadn't told the other Titans where she was going. They didn't know she was here. She could still start her life. She could still be just another citizen. She could still... sit under Ravens scrutiny while she daydreamed again. Terra blinked and shook herself.

"I... why are you here?" It sounded harsher than she'd intended. Never mind.

Raven was looking out of the window as well. She didn't speak for a while, and then she said, "I don't really know."

Terra's stomach chose that moment to growl loudly. She poked at it inconspicuously, as though that would erase the sounds and teach it a lesson. Raven eyed her. Terra noted the continuing rain. She weighed up her want for dinner against her desire to have dry clothes in the morning.

"Are you living okay?"

"What?" Terra's attention snapped back.

"Well," said Raven. "Are you living well?"

Terra scowled. Sees things other people usually don't... she thought, annoyed. "I'm fine," she said, also annoyed at how defensive that sounded. Then she added "I got a job today," because she felt it validated her independence a bit more.

Still unsure of which came tops, food or dryness, Terra scowled at the rain for making everything more complicated. And also so that she had somewhere else to look.

"I should go," said the other girl, at length.

"It's raining," said Terra.

"I can see that," she replied, standing up.

Right, thought Terra. Raven made it to the door without further comment.

"...Am I... is... am I likely to run into you any time?" Terra asked. "Ever again?" She added on the end.

Raven paused, and Terra may or may not have imagined the look that crossed her face. "That would be up to you," she replied, and left through the door.

Terra thought she understood. Raven made the first move. Now it was Terra's turn to decide whether or not to even keep playing.

-

-

-

Raven landed on the Titans Tower roof some time later, soaking wet. The cold didn't bother her so much as wearing so many clothes in the torrential rain.

She sank through the floor directly into the laundry room, before unzipping and removing the jacket to reveal the top of her leotard underneath. She snapped the elastic from her hair, toed off her boots, and peeled off her jeans, and then threw the whole lot in the machine and slammed the door shut.

"Hey, don't get moody with the machine," said a voice from the door. Beast Boy stood, a pot of something tofu in his hands. "Just 'cus you're all wet..." he added, eyeing her hair.

Raven phased through the floor down to her own room, and went sock hunting. Her room was noticeably colder than the laundry room, and she flicked the heat up with a spark of black energy.

"Raven," came through the wall, accompanied by a knock on the door. She ignored that she couldn't work out how Beast Boy had gotten there so fast. "Are you planning on being horrendously busy for the next two hours?"

"Yes," she replied, automatically irritated.

"Aw, how about the next ten..." Raven let the door slide open, and the changelings voice was immediately louder, "...minutes?" He asked. He blinked at the door. Raven was sat on her bed, efficiently lacing up a fresh pair of boots.

"What do you want?" She asked.

"To ask you something," he replied, quieter. His tofu pot had gone, she noted.

"What?" She prompted, when he didn't continue.

A cloak levitated its way across the room, along with her belt.

"I am so not the only one who saw Terra today," he said, eyeing her sideways.

The cloak and belt stopped a foot short of Ravens bed. She looked up at him sharply.

"I knew it," he said.

'Knew what?' she wanted to ask. But she didn't. She was, dare she admit it, a bit thrown by the amiable tone of his voice. "What?" She said again.

Beast Boy sighed at the door. "I just thought..." he trailed off.

Raven fastened the rest of her accessories.

The communicator that fastened her cloak began to flash, as did the one on Beast Boys belt. They dropped the conversation and headed for the control room.

* * *

_This is annoyingly short. Following chapters are going to get shorter and shorter if I don't watch it._

_I blame college. It sucks the chapter length right out a girl._

_Blackshield, way2beme, Rhys Davies and nevermore-raven, thank you ever so much for reviewwing :)_


	3. 

"Sir! _Sir_!" The heavily breathing young man spoke as though he'd been trying to catch 'Sir's' attention for some time now.

"Yes, underling!" replied a snappy, enthused, voice.

"Sir, we are good to go."

"Show of _horrors_! Send in the number fifteen then, and, dear, do make sure that this one comes home for tea. Lest you find yourself having a rather nasty calava in the ladies bathrooms later this evening."

The young mans breathing became harsher. "Sir-"

"Nay!" Cried the voice. "We shall not hear of it today. Go back to your busy-ness, and allow me to viddy my screen in a peaceful silence."

"...Sir." The young man left the room. As soon as he was out of sight of his superior, he broke into a hurried jog, to the surveillance control room.

-

-

-

Terra picked absently at the remains of her dinner. She was sat on the far end of the cushion pile, nearest to the window, holding a pair of chopsticks in one hand, and a silver tin-tray in the other. She was also staring out of the adjacent window, a faraway look on her face.

The skies were calmer now, and there was a fresh feel about the way the earth felt.

The sun was going to go down soon, and the world was calling to her.

It did that sometimes. The earth and Terra had a fairly close relationship. She had the power to move it, and in fair return, it had the power to move her, in its own mighty ways. The bond between them had grown since her time as a figure of stone. All she had known for those months was the earth...

Terra stood up with her tin-tray, and put her chopsticks down on the table. She was still wearing her jacket, but she pulled a scarf off of the back of the chair and wrapped it around her neck with her free hand as she left her cardboard box structure of a house.

She closed the door behind her, and breathed in the smell of almost dusk.

Twenty minutes of leisurely walking brought her to the recycling yard, and she disposed of her tin-tray, happy that she was giving something back. There was too much garbage in the world. She didn't need to scavenge dinner from the church charity, and then create more rubbish.

She began to walk again, not really sure where she was going, but fairly certain that she would not get lost. She walked where the earth called her to, feeling her feet going by themselves, and soaked up the natural feeling of riding the waves of the world beneath.

She was being called somewhere. She felt her powers, living, under the solid beneath the concrete and tarmac.

-

-

-

"What's going on?" Asked Beast Boy, as he ran into the control room. Raven floated speedily a few yards behind him.

At the computer screen stood Robin, pressing buttons and occasionally giving a "where was that?" and "right, thanks," into the protruding microphone. He stopped pressing buttons, and removed an earpiece, before turning to the fully assembled group.

"We've got a problem," he said.

"What is happening?" Asked Starfire.

"There's... something going on. Down town. Nothing's happened yet."

Cyborg raised a hand. "So why is it a problem?"

"Because it looks like something might."

Raven spoke. "What _is_ it?"

"Yes," agreed Starfire, "perhaps we can determine more successful action if you were to-"

"Is that a Tuberflute?" Interrupted Beast Boy, leaning sideways to look around Robin and at the screen shot on the monitor. "Or..." he cocked his head to one side, "... dude, is that an _arm_?"

"Tuberflute?" Enquired Raven.

"Yeah, you know, like those things babies have with all the pipes and stuff," he replied, still staring at the screen. "Okay, I give up. What _is_ that?"

Cyborg tried to get closer to the screen, to see for himself. Everyone except Robin leaned forwards at the image.

The Boy Wonder pressed a remote button.

The image appeared on the larger screen at the other end of the room, toward which Robin was facing. He coughed pointedly. They all turned around.

"Uh... _what_ is _that_?" was Cyborgs somewhat delayed reaction.

"Most unidentifiable," said Starfire, cocking her head to the side in contemplation.

"...Okay." Said Raven.

"Itso is a Tuberflute," said Beast Boy.

"Actually," interjected Robin, "That's what Commissioner Walker seemed to think, too."

"What about the... arm, and... stuff?" Asked Cyborg. His eyebrow was raised in mild disgust, coupled with amusement, coupled also with something that implied he wasn't entirely sure what to think.

"I guess," said Robin, "that's just an arm."

"And chicken feet?" Asked Beast Boy.

"It resembles one of your planets merry-go-around devices," observed the only alien in the room. "With additional fowl-design based manoeuvring structures, and three quarter a human arm as... a... arm," she finished, looking puzzled.

"Yep," agreed Raven. "That's definitely what it looks like."

They all stared at the image on screen for almost a full minute.

"So," said Robin quite suddenly, "as you can imagine, this is causing quite a fuss. The police don't want to handle it in case it, well, explodes, or starts attacking things with superpowers or anything."

"Right," said Cyborg. "So we're gonna go and what, detain it?"

"It doesn't look like it's really... doing anything," said Beast Boy. "Do we even know if it's a _thing_, and not just a... thing?"

"No," said Robin. "It appeared about twenty minutes ago, and it hasn't even moved. We just have to, and I quote, 'do something about it'."

"What are we waiting for?" Asked Cyborg.

-

-

-

The young man almost skidded as he rounded the corner. He dashed into the control room, flushed, and quickly recovered his breath as he dropped into a chair in front of a large screen and hit some unlabelled buttons.

A screen popped up, displaying a large and empty looking section of downtown Jump's largest unused industrial estate.

"Time to decorate," muttered a coarse haired man a couple of chairs away. He had headphones on, and looked important.

The young man knew the coarse haired man as Eighty-One.

Eighty-One pushed a couple of buttons, and then the young man leaned back in his chair, breathing in and out, and not looking at the screen.

He closed his eyes, and counted to 100, because he was suddenly and most uncharacteristically very nervous. By the time he reached 100, he opened his eyes again and found the screen was filled with a rather peculiar looking spectacle – a massive white disk. It was thick for its size, standing on two equally up-sized chicken legs (feet and all). Attached to the centre of the disk was a giant arm, severed and rounded off at the centre of the length of the bicep. Around the disks edges were multicoloured tubes, which looked like a cross between the ends of bassoons and some very oddly shaped bells.

"And we're good to go," said Eighty-One, looking sideways at the young man, and breaking into a grin. "Nervous?" He said.

The young man raised his eyebrows momentarily. "This had better go well," he said, "or it's my neck."

"Actually," said Eighty-One, "it'll probably be a little more than your neck."

"Yep," said a deeper voice, from the young mans other side. "I bet he'll take off your... arms. Arms. He has a thing for arms."

Eighty-One chuckled.

"Don't worry Kid," he said. "We're sorted."

Kid breathed out slowly, and pursed his lips. He eyed the scene on screen.

-

-

-

By the time the Titans reached the scene, people were screaming, and/or running away in all directions.

It was probably the arm, thought Robin. People just weren't used to seeing giant severed arms rounded off like that, and attached to giant toddler toys. Starfire dropped him on the ground a hundred or so yards from the giant chicken-feet, and hovered a short way off the ground.

He pulled out his bo staff, ready, and waited for Raven to cover the thing with energy, to see if he would need to use it.

-

Raven levitated over the giant arm. Whirling around her a few meters up was a green falcon. She centred her energies.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!"

Her eyes glowed with an absence of light, as she sent a wave of black energy downwards.

She noticed the twitch of the giant arm at the last second.

-

-

-

(A little ahead)

Terra came up to some buildings. She wasn't sure if she'd ever been here before, it looked more like a collection of industrial estates than a residential area.

She kept walking, and began to see the occasional person. It took her a while to realise that every single one of them was running in the opposite direction to that she was walking in.

It made her mildly curious.

The earth would never send her into harm deliberately. She had no reason to be afraid. Terra kept walking, until she came up to a particularly large section of the estate, and discovered a likely cause of the running persons. 

Someone new pushed past her, screaming loudly. She winced. The earth called her forwards again, and she found herself walking towards a most peculiar structure.

She noted, vaguely, as the giant hand slammed down, that she wasn't the only one who'd been squashed by it.

-

-

-

(A little behind)

As soon as the energy hit the... thing, Robin found himself wondering; was it designed to react like that when touched by anything, or was this particular offensive mechanism aimed specifically to target Raven?

It was a puzzling thought, and one he would likely not find the answer to unless he managed to interrogate the creator of this monstrosity. In the time it took for the arm to snap up and firmly grasp the sorceress (or, whatever Raven classified as these days) he also managed to wonder why the girl across the estate-way was just standing there, and why she looked like Terra.

Except... not quite like Terra. Terra wore gloves, and was a little shorter. And her hair was different. And Terra was...

The hand slammed down, hard, into the concrete. Over Raven. And the not-Terra girl.

Robin stared for a second, waiting for something to happen. He registered that none of his team mates were moving. He waited for the hand to move. For the black aura to form around it, and force it up, and off of... the concrete.

The hand stayed where it was, the structure now leant at an even odder angle, the hand stretching the arm forwards in a mimicking of some kind of yoga movement.

The sun set.

The estate they stood on suddenly seemed more like a shadowy plateau. Robin heard someone hollering, as he ran forwards and leapt up at the structure, poised to strike. In his peripheral vision, he caught an image of Cyborg, sending a sonic blast to the arm, and Beast Boy, up above, falling to land on the ground as a mighty T-Rex. Starbolts were beginning to aim at the chicken legs.

And then the bassoon ends sounded.

He couldn't hear the noise they were making, but the bassoon-like endings definitely sounded. The vibrations were incredibly pungent in the air, and overpowering enough to throw him backwards and to the floor. His ears quickly began to hurt, and he dropped his staff to cover them.

No longer able to even see anything through the intense waves, Robin gave in to the urge to yell, and found his vocal cords useless.

* * *

_Ouch._

_They're getting shorter._

_Perhaps I can blag this off on... the chapters are slowly decreasing in length to reflect the number of Titans that are still a part of the team ;)_

_Yes, that's exactly what i'm trying to achieve with this._

_**Sunshine10** and **Autumn Thief**, thanking you very much! **BlackShield** -- Thank you very much too... I so wanted to say something here about the R-BB bit, but it might ruin the plot :( ... no worries about your favourite pairing though, I can pretty much garuntee that it's not gonna happen. Hahaha. Ahem._


	4. 

The Following Words

Robin woke up, abruptly. He wasn't even that sure when he'd fallen asleep, or… unconscious. He looked around, momentarily disorientated. Industrial estating?

He sat up, rubbing at his head. A dull ache echoed behind his ears, distracting enough to require pressure from his hand.

Someone was screaming.

He looked around. Actually, it appeared more like Beast Boy was yelling. Loudly.

"Beast Boy," he tried to say, and blinked and wondered if he'd gone deaf. "Beast Boy," he tried again, more forcefully. He could hear Beast Boy. He wasn't deaf. He could hear a rasping noise coming from his throat. He still wasn't deaf.

Oh. Dear.

Beast Boy was still yelling. Robin looked around for something to throw at him to get his attention, when someone interjected.

"What the hell are you _yelling_ about?" Cut in a Cyborg like voice.

Robin rubbed his head again, and stood up. Cyborg was slumped against a pole a few metres away. He looked as though he'd only just woken up, judging by the blinking and disorientated expression.

Robin looked around to see where Starfire was. Not seeing her on the ground, he looked up. Not seeing her there, either, he began to worry. Beast Boy said something to Cyborg that he didn't quite catch.

He looked around for Raven.

And then he remembered, a dream or something, which involved a giant structure on chicken legs with three quarters of a giant arm attached to it. He vaguely remembered it slamming its arm down, and… had Raven been underneath that? And had someone else… the memory trickled away then, like water out of his hands, and he rubbed behind his ears again.

He looked around for a second time, for something to throw at his remaining apparently _two_ teammates.

-

-

-

Terra drifted up from the sleepy warm hold of unconsciousness into a world of ow-my-head and what's-that-warm-thing.

She blinked and tried to look around, but it was dark, and her eyes didn't seem adjusted yet. She remembered going for a walk, and that was nothing unusual. She remembered everything else, and then wondered non-committedly if the church had slipped some drugs into her charity dinner.

She decided to squeeze her eyes, to make her vision better, and tried to move all her limbs. And that was when she remembered that there was a warm thing next to her. Terra grunted and poked it, hard, and it rolled limply.

Opening her eyes, she found them a little more adjusted, and she sat up. Everything still looked a little grey and dark. She looked down. Something black and white and maybe red, but she couldn't tell that much, was lying in the space of the thing she'd poked. It was covered with a sheet of some kind of blue material, but she still knew that it was black and white, and maybe red.

She looked down at herself, and wasn't _that_ surprised to see that she was yellow. She was a little surprised to see that she was also a bit of blue, and a bit of green, and a bit of brown. She considered the drugs thing a bit more seriously as she tried to stand up, and failed, to her backsides misfortune.

She could hear a voice, yelling, somewhere vaguely in the distance. It sounded oddly familiar.

The limp thing under the sheet moved, Terra looked around to see if she could determine any further exactly where she was.

The no longer limp thing sat up, abruptly, checking that it had all its arms and legs, and then breathed in deeply. It looked at Terra, at the edge of her peripheral vision.

"This is so wrong," it croaked, somewhere between sarcasm and the tone of one who doesn't really believe that they're saying that out loud.

"Yeah," said Terra. Something about that voice sparked an old annoyance.

"Where are…" it paused. "Terra?" It said, as though testing.

"What?" Answered Terra, almost convinced that the black, white, and maybe red thing was Raven.

"Right," it said. There was another long pause, and Terra felt she'd better check.

"Raven?" She said.

"Uh… what?" What do _you_ want? Heard Terra.

"Nothing," she replied. Raven changed the subject.

"Where are we?"

"Somewhere," said Terra, "didn't you get-"

"Squashed to death, yes, I am aware," replied the whatever-Raven-counted-as. "I take it you did as well, though exactly what the hell squashed us, and why you were even there, and where in shits name we are _now_, still rather eludes me."

"You just _swore_," said Terra, in an accusatory voice. Raven didn't _swear_.

"I'm annoyed," replied Raven. She did sound rather irritated. Terra suspected then, that Raven was also maybe a little scared, and that was why she was using all sorts of sarcastic techniques to sound like she was angrier.

"I don't think we're dead," said Terra, helpfully. "Because this isn't real earth." She poked the surface they were on.

Raven didn't say anything.

"I was out for a walk," the earthmover continued. "A giant kiddies toy with chicken legs and an arm got you. I mean us."

Raven levitated into a standing position, and Terra was momentarily envious of her power. Ravens eyes glowed white, she was looking around. Her arms and legs were all the colours, and none of the colours, and there were red veins running through them now and again. Terra wondered what she looked like to Raven, and hoped that she looked just as impressive.

"We're definitely not dead," said Raven.

"I know that," replied Terra.

Raven levitated higher, and Terra began to lose sight of her in the darkness. She worried now, that it wasn't just an absence of light, and more actual darkness, wrapping everything up so that she was effectively quite blind.

"Hey," she called, "don't-" She cut herself off, not wanting to sound like she couldn't take care of herself. But Raven was leaving her vision, and because she couldn't feel an ounce of real earth anywhere near her, and last time she'd tried to stand up she'd failed miserably, she was going to be left on her own, in the dark, pretty much helpless. Terra was overcome with a feeling of 'I'm a big baby'.

-

-

-

"Brilliant!" Cried Kid's boss, joyously. "Brillion padding."

"Yes Sir," said Kid, happily. "Fifteen really did surpass itself."

"And they have not one idea!" Said the boss again.

"Not one," confirmed Eighty-One, who was still wearing his headphones.

"You truly are a genius, Sir," complimented another man. General mumbles of agreement passed through the ranks of the twenty or so people in the surveillance room of the unnamed organizations HQ.

Kid span on his office chair, unable to keep the grin off his face. The mission had been successful, and he still had both arms, and his neck was fully in tact, and his boss was happy. And a happy boss was a generous boss.

"There shall be toast," said the boss, holding up a charred slice of bread. "Toast, for what we have achieved this day."

A kind of toast was had. Spinning again, Kid grinned.

A party was underway, for the most recent achievement of the unnamed organization. The fifteenth of the fifteen operatives had finally achieved the mission goal. This was only the second of the operations that the Teen Titans had even noticed as worth fighting. But the boss didn't mind. He had a million more inventions in that brain, and he enjoyed seeing a product of his mind finished and operative as much as seeing it complete the mission effectively.

"To the Brilliance," said The Boss. "And it could not have been undertaken without much of the work you all managed to get done."

"To the Boss!" Said the man by Eighty-One, spontaneously.

He was in for a pay rise, thought Kid, judging solely by the look on the Bosses face.

"A more Brilliant leader there could never have become," said The Boss, raising his toast again.

The party continued for another few hours, and the atmosphere was more relaxed and easy that it had been in months. Kid remembered why he worked there, as he relished in the overdone compliments and utter worshipping ethic that was underway.

Task One, mission completed. The follow-up job would only be easy, he thought, and ran through the plan in his head idly, enjoying the lack of obscene pressure.

Task One had been to make the law enforcement agencies of Jump City prove themselves to be useless against them. This included an agenda that went something like make the police hand the job over to their superiors, kick the crap out of their superiors.

The superiors, in this city's case, were the Teen Titans.

The objective part two had been to break the team down, and prove that they could do nothing to stop the Brilliance of the Bosses plans. This included separating the five members so that they were no longer a team, and using the weaknesses that they didn't even know they had to alter their minds and memories, and perhaps, eventually, their personalities, so that the city would be free for a new reign of ultimate vigilante power.

Task Two was to step up the organizations more _active_ role in Jump.

-

-

-

Terra sat in the dark, pretending that she didn't mind it at all, as she waited for Raven to return. She tried twiddling her thumbs to keep herself amused, and then started playing with the ends of her hair. She wondered more in depth why she couldn't feel any earth here, and why she had been turned into a big baby by this lack of powers thing.

A vague something drifted downwards, and landed in a crouch next to her. The graceful effect was spoilt by the odd balance shift that had made Terra fall over when she'd tried to stand, and now played its part by causing Raven to topple sideways and off of her feet. She sighed, and sat down in a more comfortable position.

"We're _definitely_ not dead," said Raven. She sounded awfully sure about that.

"Why's that?" Asked Terra.

"Because…" Raven sounded like she didn't want to say something. "Because you'll have to trust me on this one."

Terra snorted without meaning to. Raven acted as though she hadn't heard.

"How are we going to get out of here then?" Asked Terra.

"I guess keep going up. As far as I can tell, there's just nothing there."

Terra shifted uncomfortably. "I, um, don't know if that'll work," she said. "Isn't there… like, a light-switch in here, or something?"

"No." Deadpan. But of course.

Terra decided to just say it. "I can't go anywhere," she said. "There's no earth in here. I can't even stand up."

-

-

-

Robin paced down alleyways around the estate until he found the missing alien. She was lying on a heap of black garbage bags. She blinked and began sitting up as Robin approached, rubbing at her head. Robin frowned. He really hoped that there was nothing seriously wrong with her. Like a headache.

"Star," he said, jogging up to her. What actually came out of his mouth was a raspy breath of exhalation.

"Robin!" Said the alien, turning to look at him. "Robin, what… where are we?"

Robin gestured to his throat, and then began to make jerky hand gestures. When Starfire had arrived on earth, English was thankfully not the only language she'd been educated in.

Upon understanding his sign-language communication, Starfire gasped.

"But… what has caused this?" She said.

Robins face fell slightly. He made some more gestures.

"I understand," said Starfire. She got up off of the garbage pile, and brushed herself off in an attempt to appear more presentable. She eyed Robin, concern obvious. "How are the-"

She stopped as Robin began to gesture more, nodding, her eyes on his hands. When he finished, she took a moment to think. "What must we do now?" She asked. "I remember nothing."

A further yell from Beast Boy interrupted them. He was shouting, further away.

"I believe our friend might need us," said Starfire. She took Robins hand, and they began to walk towards the raised voice, the Boy Wonders face troubled.

* * *

_**Way2beme --** It certainly would._

_**Autumn Thief -- **Sorry, I should have made that clearer! That comment was aimed more at Black Shield "smiley" , anyway, cheers, here's an update!_

_**Sunshine10 -- **Not so fast this time... but this week is the holidays. I'm home. I have no life. It should continue._

_**Lovely White Violets -- **Cool! If you still want to nick MTB, email me or something and i'll send you the download. I'd love to see what you've got in mind for it._

_**Nevermore-raven -- **I have no idea if I answered any of that... "grin"_

__

_Don't you just hate the lack of asterics? Thanks for reviewing, me and my pet monkey love you._


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